The Champions, My Friend
by rockpaperscissor
Summary: Set between 5.02 and 5.03. “Hey ah, so… I’ve never really thanked you, have I?”


**_The Champions, My Friend  


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_A/N: Weird how it works, isn't it? After such a dry spell, I'm suddenly writing a oneshot... anyway. This is set somewhere between/during 5.02 and 5.03. I wrote it in one sitting, so hopefully you don't mind it being a little rough around the edges. I hope you like.  
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_Red, black – Alastair shifts his hands a little to the right, calls him a prodigy. Every day is the same, yet still radically different – there are so many options, countless possibilities. He drowns himself in the routine, drowns himself in screams and blood. Hopes that maybe someday the lack of air will finally get to him and he'll choke and then, and then it'll be over –_

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Dean wakes up.

It's really not… monumental, or anything. People wake up all the time. Even on Thursdays - which it is, incidentally, even if it is a wee bit early in the morning. People wake up on Thursdays. Dean wakes up on Thursdays.

So, Dean wakes up.

The way he gasps afterwards, though, wide green eyes darting up and down and every which way, you might have thought he'd just woken up from a coma and discovered that his girlfriend cheated on him with his mom, google's just a myth and Bush and Britney had a baby. _And _his dog died.

His wayward stare lands on the one other bed in the room. Dean's mouth quirks. His hands shake as they're lifted to clutch at his head, and he just breathes for a minute. Just a minute.

Just some time. That's all he needs.

Right.

…Right.

He snorts, a little disgusted with himself. He smiles a small wry smile, jerks his hands off his head and pulls back the covers. Gets up. He walks over to the minifridge and stares down, trying to decide.

Dean does know better, in case you're wondering.

He just, well, doesn't particularly care about how to best utilize this knowledge.

A little voice at the back of his head drones monotonously, _noooo Dean don't doooo it, drinking is baaaaad – _but since it kinda sounds like the voice badly needs a drink itself, Dean figured that it was pretty much giving him the okay.

His hand reaches –

"Dean."

If he wasn't so tired, maybe he would have jumped. As it is he just opens the fridge regardless and pulls out a bottle, pours half of it into a flask. Like hell he cares.

Like hell. Hah.

"Cas," he says. "How was… that place. You went somewhere."

"Namibia."

He blows out air, chuckles softly a little over the spout of the flask. He's in a weird mood. "Right." He drinks. It isn't helping yet.

"There was no sign of God -"

"So this is what, a courtesy call?"

Silence.

Dean turns for the first time, meets the angel's eyes head on. The poor guy's stubbly and tired-looking, hair every which way like it always is – but somehow droopier too, like it's just about had it with everything. There's scuffle marks on that tan jacket Castiel likes so much, and those shoes, fuck, they've seen a lot of walking.

Damn it. This is it, isn't it? It's just him and Castiel fighting this thing. Bobby's – Bobby, there when you need him but on the sidelines, Ellen and Jo are waiting on his orders, on _his _orders, and Sam's –

Cas. Dean's treating Cas, who's practically his best and only friend, like shit.

His friend, like shit.

…God, Dean, get a _grip_.

He's never been one to shy away from a challenge – okay no, that's not true, not with this kind of thing leastways, but when it comes down to it, when Dean knows what needs to get done, it gets _done_, bitch.

…Eventually, anyway.

But kicked-puppy-dog looks from angels probably shouldn't be allowed to go on for too long. Time to man up.

In a manner of speaking.

"Hey ah, so… I've never really thanked you, have I?"

And there, puppy look gone. Now the angel just looks completely confused – which is a much better look on him, if Dean may say so himself. Confuddled Cas might be Dean's favorite flavor of Cas, actually.

"Thanked me?"

"For… you know. Pulling me out." _Even if you were late by ten years._ He waits a little, then says awkwardly, "Thanks."

Castiel frowns at him. Back to the sucky faces. "It was my duty. I was ordered."

"You think I care? Like hell am I thanking Zachariah, or whoever told you to do it. You pulled me out, I'm thanking you."

The angel doesn't smile, but maybe a wrinkle or two goes away. "You are welcome," he says. "I am… also glad." He sits down on a bed and twiddles his fingers – _twiddles_. Yeesh. Guess they're in for a long run tonight.

"Drink?" Dean offers, and Castiel _looks _at him. "Okay, never mind," he mutters, though secretly a part of him is still kinda thrilled that he knows an _angel _who's all pure and sinless (kinda) and stuff.

He sits down on the bed across from Cas, and then on second thought lays down, resting his shoulders against the wall.

"It would have been bad, you know?" he says after a long, hard pull on the whiskey flask. "If I'd turned into one of them. Not just for me. Sam would have – it would have been bad."

He feels Cas's sharp glance. "One of them?"

"Yeah, you know. Demons." When Cas doesn't say anything, he adds, "The things that keep trying to kill us. The bad guys."

Cas doesn't say anything for a minute, and then he says, voice careful, "You believe you would have… sided with Lucifer, had you stayed in Hell?"

Dean looks down his flask. Stupid things should really just learn to refill automatically. "Well I would have had to, wouldn't I. I mean, it's kinda what demons do, right? Part of the schtick?"

Another pause. "I… I profess to feeling confusion."

It figures that of all the angels he could have had, he gets saddled with the dumb one. "What's there to be confused about? Lucifer's evil. Demons like Lucifer. Ergo, if I had turned into a demon back in hell I would have batted for Team Evil Dude."

He looks over and sees that Castiel's standing over him, head tilted like Dean was some kind of fascinating animal. "…How exactly do you propose to turn into a demon?"

What the crap? "I don't want to turn into a demon, Cas! Fuck, what's wrong with you?"

"But you said –"

This is exactly why guys don't do and should never do chick moments. "If I was in hell, Cas! If I was in hell! I wouldn't have had a choice if I was in hell, okay?! Fucking Christ," he swears and throws the empty flask at the bedside table, where it bounces off and hits the floor. Dean pulls out of bed, stomps over to the fridge and gets himself the rest of the bottle, fuck the stupid un-refillable flask.

He doesn't go back to the bed, chooses instead to drink over the fridge and look out the window – not that he can see anything out there anyway – until Cas pulls a Cas and leaves.

Because like hell does Dean deserve to put up with this shit. Fucking best friend.

"Dean. Humans cannot turn into demons. That's impossible."

He snorts. "Spare me the pity crap, I know how it works. Had it straight from the horse's mouth."

"Then this horse lied to you," Cas says earnestly, and before Dean can stop him and explain that he doesn't actually go to horses for supernatural advice, he goes on, "Lucifer created demons when he fell from Heaven. He did not create them from humans."

Dean turns, unsteadily. "He – he didn't?"

Blue eyes stare him down calmly. "Of course not. Lucifer reviles humans."

It takes him a few seconds to get what this means. "So you mean I wasn't – I couldn't have been – "

"Never," Castiel says, gently.

He steps back, stumbles, falls to a sit on the ground. "I… I see," he says, dazedly. Ruby lied to him and he fell for it. He doesn't know why he's so surprised, he already knows demons lie and that Ruby was a fucking, fucking bitch.

Guess he knows what Sam feels like, now.

Sam –

A hand grips his shoulder. Castiel is kneeling next to him. "This does not change anything."

"What's there to change," Dean mumbles tiredly, and raises the bottle to his mouth, but fucking angel takes it away from him before he even gets his lips wet.

"It still is not your fault."

He reaches for the bottle, misses. "Don't know what you mean –"

Castiel lightly pushes him back on the floor. "You persist in your irrationality. You were forced to torture damned souls under duress, not of your own volition."

Dean snorts to cover his flinch. "Don't sugarcoat it or anything…" he mutters.

"I didn't save you in time. If you must blame someone, blame me." Soft sigh. "I could have spared you this."

He starts, glances at the angel before staring at the ground. "It's – no, Cas, you tried, I can't blame you for trying."

"Then I must ask you grant yourself the same kindness." Pause. "Thirty years is a long time to try, Dean."

He just sits and thinks for a while. "It is," he says finally. "Yeah, I – I guess it is, isn't it?"

There's no answer. The next time Dean looks up, his friend is gone.

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_You're a prodigy, Alastair says, voice black and red on his face and there are screams, screams everywhere. He feels like he's drowning. You're a prodigy, Alastair says, and Dean feels like forever. This, this is forever._

_Except then Dean feels something tap his shoulder. He steps back from the rack, pulls away from Alastair. He looks up._

_And there's a hand.

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A/N: I don't really buy the whole humans-turn into demons thing. I don't exactly know how demons procreate, but there are only so many angels and so many demons, right? And who would the demons torture if all the damned turned into demons? I feel like they'd be massively bored.

The little part when a voice in Dean's head tells him halfheartedly not to drink was, I confess, drawn from real life. I had a really bad day last week... and I had a very convenient bottle of cheap vodka in my fridge. I stared at it, the voice in my head telling me the exact same thing.... I even took out a shotglass - and then my friend came in my room and saved me. Haha, that was probably for the best. (I do not endorse drinking as a solution, btw)


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